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Thursday, August 9, 2012

This post showcases videos and early examples of the English language children's rhyme "3 6 9 The Goose Drank Wine". This children's rhyme is also known as "Once Upon A Time The Goose Drank Wine". Recorded versions of this rhyme are known as "The Clapping Game".

The content of this post is presented for recreational, folkloric, educational, and aesthetic purposes.

All rights to this material remain with their owners.

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RHYME & SONG INFORMATION
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clapping_Song:
"The Clapping Song" is an American song, written by Lincoln Chase, originally arranged by Charles Callello and recorded by Shirley Ellis in 1965. The song was released shortly after Ellis had released "The Name Game". The lyrics of "The Clapping Song" were borrowed from the song "Little Rubber Dolly", a 1930s song recorded by the Light Crust Doughboys, and also feature instructions for a clapping game. The song made it to #8 on the charts.

The song returned to the charts in 1982, when the Belle Stars' version charted at number 11 in the U.K. This version did not chart in the U.S."
-snip-
"The Clapping Game" lyrics also include a version of the American children's rhyme "Once Upon A Time" (The Goose Drank Wine)". Thhis rhyme is also known as "3 6 9 (The Goose Drank Wine)". Several early versions of that rhyme are given in the Rhyme Example section below.

Once upon a time, a goose chewed wine
Billy goat a'settin' on the streetcar line
Streetcar broke, the monkey got choked
and they all went to heaven on a nanny goat."
-Guest,WadeHP; Date: 04 Nov 03 - 01:18 PM

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Example #2
My version is a little diffrerent. I grew up in the south in the 1930's and we sang it this way:

"Once upon a time, The goose drank wine,
The monkey chewed tobacco on the streetcar line.
The streetcar broke and the monkey choked,
And they all went to heaven on a dead billy goat."

Now, ain't that a hoot???

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Example #3
This is the "goose drank wine" rhyme as I remember it from my childhood in the 1950's. I don't recall any game or activity associated with it; we just recited it.

Once upon a time
the goose drank wine;
the hen pecked corn
off the streetcar line.
The streetcar broke
the monkey got choked
Steamboat! Steamboat!
Holler like a Nanny Goat!
Guest,Terry Mount; Date: 05 Apr 04 - 11:26 AM

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Example #4:
All of the above versions seem to be American.
For a possibly earlier English chant obviously related.(1950s Yorkshire)

Once upon a time when pigs ate/sh^t* lime
And monkeys chewed tobacco,
The little piggy run with his finger up his bum,
To see what was the matter.

I'm sure I've seen other British variants too.

Ah here we are.
Chambers Popular Rhymes of Scotland p57

Lang syne, when geese were swine,
And turkeys chewed tobacco,
And birds biggit their nests in auld men's beards
And mowdies del't potawtoes--

which kicks off a folk tale called The Wife and her Bush of Berries.

I have another half dozen versions from various parts of Britain.
-Steve Gardham; Date: 29 Jul 09 - 07:09 PM

Editor:
*The "s" word is fully spelled out in this post.

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Example #5
My mother-in-law, Marguerite LeMieux Marsh, taught me a version of this rhyme that she learned in Orono, Maine in the 1920s.
"Once upon a time when a goose drank wine,
and a monkey chewed tobacco on a streetcar line.
The streetcar broke. The monkey told a joke.
And they all went to heaven in a little tin boat."

This may have been one of the first rhymes she learned in English, as they spoke French at home, and her knowledge of English was rather scanty when she first went to school.
-Guest,Silvia Wilson; Date: 29 Jul 09 - 11:02 AM

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Example #6
Once upon a time the goose drank wine the monkey played the fiddle on the sweet potato vine..The vine broke the monkey choked they all went to heaven on a billy goat I learned that verse from my Gradmother (Louisiana)
-GUEST,Beckie In louisiana; Date: 14 Jan 10 - 04:51 PM

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Example #7
Same meter, similar verse from Hopalong Peter- might have been a ropeskip verse?
Old mother Hubbard and her dog were Dutch
A bow-legged rooster and he hobbled on a crutch
The hen chewed tobacco and the duck drank wine
The goose played the fiddle on the pumpkin vine
-iancarterb; Date: 15 Jan 10 - 10:35 PM

Click http://www.lizlyle.lofgrens.org/RmOlSngs/RTOS-Hopalong.html for information, lyrics, and a music score of the song "Hopalong Peter". The author of that post writes that "Hopalong Peter isn't very widely collected, and I suspect that means it isn't very old. There seem to have been two recordings on 78s..."

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SONG LYRICS: THE CLAPPING GAME
(Lincoln Chase)

Three, six, nine, the goose drank wine,
The monkey chewed tobacco on the streetcar line
The line broke, the monkey got choked,
They all went to heaven in a little row-boat

My mother told me
If I was good-ee
That she would buy me
A rubber dolly

My aunty told her
I kissed a soldier
Now she won't buy me
A rubber dolly

Three, six, nine, the goose drank wine,
The monkey chewed tobacco on the streetcar line
The line broke, the monkey got choked,
They all went to heaven in a little row-boat

Clap-clap: Clap you hands and prepare to pat
Pat: Take your right arm pat your partner's right palm with your right palm
Clap: Take your hands back and clap

Pat: Take you right arm cross your right arm with your left arm pat your partner's left palm with your left palm.
Clap: Take your hands back and clap
Pat: Take your right arm cros your left arm and pat your partner's right palm with your right palm.
Clap: Now back, with a clap
Take the flats of your palms and slap your thighs and watch the fun materialize as you sing this little song:

My mother told me
If I was good-ee
That she would buy me
A rubber dolly

My aunty told her
I kissed a soldier
Now she won't buy me
A rubber dolly

I did the driving for this commercial. I do not own the rights to this commercial.
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RELATED LINKS
Click http://cocojams.com/content/handclap-jump-rope-and-elastics-rhymes Cocojams Handclap, Jump Rope, and Elastics Rhymes for more examples of children's playground rhymes.
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A verse from UB 40's 1983 Reggae song "Red Red Wine" has very similar lyrics to the children's playground rhyme "Once Upon A Time [or "3-6-9"] The Goose Drank Wine":

"Red red wine you make me feel so fine
Monkey pack him rizla pon the sweet dep line"
-snip-
From Arbuthnot, Date: 15 Jan 10 - 01:10 AM on Mudcat link given above:
"Rizla is what the English call those cigarette papers - the manufacturers are a company called Riz, La Croix (translates as Rice and Cross), and they shortened the name to Riz La+ on the packets!"

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT AND THANKS
Thanks to the un-named composers of the children's rhyme "3 6 9 The Goose Drank Wine" ("Once Upon A Time The Goose Drank Wine"). Thanks also to the Lincoln Chase for his composition "The Clapping Song" and Shirley Ellis, and others for their performance of that song. My thanks also to the producers, videographers, video uploaders, and commenters who I have quoted in this post.

16 comments:

Been looking for the origins of "The Goose Drank Wine" bit of rhyme.. thanks for posting about it. My dad taught me his version from south Georgia, in the 1950's:Once upon a timeThe goose drank wine,Monkey chewed tobacco on the street car line.The line broke,The monkey choked, And got tobacco juice down his throat.

This is so interesting .. thank you for this. My grandfather told me of a little poem he use to say when he was a little boy. It went:"Once upon a time when the birds chewed Lion and the monkeys chewed tobacco, the little boy run with a bullet in his bum to see what was the matter."He was born in Queensland, Australia in 1895. It's a small world! Sue

When I was little in Englandin the 50s they used to chant:Once upon a time when the birds mucked wine and the monkeys chewed tobacco, the little piggies run with their fingers up their bum to see what was the matter.

Nine-thirty-six. I stand up from the kitchen table to put another log into the fire, notice the time as my gaze crosses the clock-face -- nine-thirty-six.

Nine three six.

Then, who knows why -- into my head it comes --

Three six nineThe goose drank wineThe monkey chewed tobacco on the streetcar lineThe line brokeThe monkey got chokedAnd they all went to heaven in a little red boatToot toot!

Yes -- Mullica Hill (Gloucester County, NJ), fifty-five years ago -- 1960 or thereabouts when Gail Kirkpatrick, the older of the two neighbor girls in the house to the south, taught it to my sister and me.

I never knew this as a song, just a nursery rhyme from my dad, and he said:Once upon a time, a goose drank wineSpit tobacco juice on the street car lineThe line broke, the motor got chokedAnd we all went to town on a billy goat

My aunts used to sing another version in the 1940's (in Baltimore). They sang it to me when I was a little girl (born in 1945). "Once upon a time the goose drank wine and a monkey chewed tobacco on the streetcar line. The line broke, the monkey got choked and we all went to heaven in a little red boat."

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I'm an African American mother, grandmother, & retired human services administrator. For more than forty years I have shared adapted West African stories with audiences in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area.
I have four blogspots: pancocojams, zumalayah, cocojams2, and .Civil Rights Songs. Much of the content of these blogs were previously found on my cocojams and jambalayah cultural websites. I curate all of these blogs on a voluntary basis.
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